Alone, are you?

I blinked.

And I blinked twice more, for there was sunlight streaming through the slits in the curtain, reaching and caressing my sleep weary skin gently. The gnawing in my stomach spread across my body, until my very toe nails and fingertips quivered by the weight of it. No amount of cowering under a warm, freshly washed blanket helped.

I turned around, the sunlight caressing my back now. Her chest rose and fell, a steady rhythm. And I felt utterly alone.

I turned around, the raindrops pattering against the windowpane appearing distant. His bony hands splayed across the mattress. And I felt utterly alone.

I turned around, the spiral of dust dancing to an unheard music of its own. The little girl smiled at a dream that I couldn’t possibly see. And I felt utterly alone.

I turned around, the gloom brushing gently across my bare shoulders. The empty bed beside me welcomed me so very benevolently. And I felt utterly alone.

Yes, truly and utterly alone.

Have you ever woken up on a beautiful, beautiful Sunday morning feeling entirely and utterly alone? Not the feeling of being alone due to the absence of a mortal soul, not the feeling of being alone because family is an alien word to you, not the feeling of being alone because friends no longer care.

But the feeling of aloneness when a family awaits you in the next room, a spouse or a friend or a child is lying beside you, their hands snaked around your waist. The feeling of aloneness when everything is downright happy and content.

I shall so very presumptuously go ahead and answer for each one of you. Yes, you have. We all have felt the aloneness barge in uninvited, stay over for more than a sip of coffee or two, and felt it pull its strings on us. If you are saying otherwise, I ask you to stop reading, stop wanting to know what all of this is leading to.

The aloneness is prominent, today, tomorrow and forever.

But what matters more is what you chose to do about it. Are you willing to resign and sigh and curl up and binge watch series and movies when the very essence of you is being stomped down? Are you willing to tuck it away, safely and carefully, lock it up in a chamber of your brain that probably would catch dust in matter of time and soon be considered as garbage? Are you willing to dwell on it, immensely and feverishly, only to find yourself walking down the steps leading to dooms of despair?

Instead, embrace it. Accept it. Wear it as a cloak around you, one that you wear proudly. Take all this aloneness and be a little selfish. In the morning, noon, twilight and night, put yourselves ahead of everyone else in this big, big world. Listen to the demanding’s in your bright little head and fulfill them. Strive, strive hard and long and more than you possibly can and whenever this aloneness takes hold of you, do all those little or big things that you always wanted to do. Be it watching a bird soar away into the big blue sky, be it mundanely counting the number of stars, be it singing aloud with your raucous voice to your heart’s content, be it creating a new piece of art, be it writing down a new masterpiece, be it cooking a little burnt meal, be it walking down the street with a banner in hand and a slogan escaping your lips for justice or revolution, do it. Do it now.

I’m not asking you to do it because tomorrow, once the world has dwindled into oblivion and you are wiped away from the face of this universe, the guilt will churn you for having done nothing. Neither am I asking you to do it for glory or the like. I’m asking you to do it to accept the aloneness, to make yourself live before anyone else, to put a smile on your face before anyone else.

Because only when you learn to know all of this, accept all of this immense monster of aloneness, and live, actually live in the very sense of the word, will you ever be able to give abundantly.

And give you should, not once or twice or three, again and again. All your life. But to give, you need to own some of that happiness, some of that content, some of that satisfaction, some of that ecstasy. And to wait to create any of these from a fellow individual would be futile, for if all of us are waiting for that magical fellow individual to swoop in gallantly and pour down buckets of happiness, content and satisfaction, there is going to be no fellow individual, dear one.

And one fine day, when you or I turn around, with the bright summer sun on our backs, the face of a beloved snoring away contentedly, the aloneness will take over us. With a grip that doesn’t fail, and surprisingly, the ever present sigh will come out as a smile. A giggle. A happy laugh. Or a melancholic grin (there can be one, take my word for it!).

It won’t matter if oblivion is steps away at that moment, for you are, finally living.